The Cracks in the Perfect Promises of Our Education System

            This piece of non-fiction showcases some of the challenges individuals encounter as they work to hop across their many stepping stones. I wrote this article about an issue that is very close to me, for I have had to deal with it for the past four years on a regular basis. I believe it shows that while we go along with our lives, the path is not always smooth-sailing, and though some of the issues we encounter seem silly, they can make the journey a lot more difficult.

           

            School boards all over North America often ring out with the same cries full of promise: “We will turn your children into capable adults!”, “We will ensure that they learn everything that there is to know in order to prepare them for their life in society!” and so forth, vowing to make the learning students undergo perfect. However, as someone who has not yet seen life outside of the public school system, I have a cloud-free horizon of experiences to pick from to showcase just how inefficient the system can be.

            While I am not here to pick apart every wrong-doing I have ever encountered at my own high-school, there were some definite bumps along the road that made me raise an eyebrow. The biggest one for myself, a senior student mere weeks away from graduation, is my complete lack of any clue as to what I want to be for the rest of my life. I took, in total, 30 classes in school along with 2 out-of-school credit-contributing classes, yet none of these pushed me in the right direction. Instead, it was as if each class I took was a rope attached to my limbs, and each pulled me towards a separate way. Consequentially, applying to universities this past January was a nightmare, as I sat at home, watched by the calendar screaming “DEADLINE THIS WEEK” and was forced to hastily make a choice that could very well determine my future. In the end I wound up applying for business, even though all my life I had loved writing, and my Career’s class in Grade 10 had instructed me to become a marriage and family therapist. It was a hectic week indeed, and one that caused high peaks of stress.

            The probable reason as to why I couldn’t make up my mind in what to study post-secondary school was because no course I took truly showed me what a job in that certain field would be like. For example, when I took English, it was a matter of reading Macbeth, writing an essay, performing a skit, and creating a power-point. I did not enjoy these tasks, although the grade I received was high, and the class certainly showed me no glimpse as to what going into the field of writing would be like. Similarly, taking the economics course right now, I have so far had to do a presentation on Karl Marx and make a poster on the themes of the movie “Wall Street”. Again, not an accurate representation of what awaits me if I do decide to pursue a career in economics. These many classes and their multiple projects only cloud and annoy students who are trying to get a sense of what they are good at and what they like. It is difficult indeed, to figure out what you like, when you hate every class because every teacher has you doing a presentation on a historical figure at the same time.

            Following this minor road-blockage along my high-school career (that I hope has not resulted in the threat of a chaotic future for me), there is the case of what many students face all over Canada: impossible departments. In some schools it is science, in others English; at mine it is the infamous mathematics department. I am currently in a class that is facing such a low average, that in order to save their chances of getting into university, the class size has dropped from a near 30 to a mere 15 or so people. On top of that, the brightest student in the class has only immigrated to Canada recently, and thinks the class is joke. Meanwhile, everyone else is drowning in the 40-60% range. I’m sure the department could easily win the award they seem to yearn for: “Toughest department in the GTA! Failing you, and you, and YOU! Hooray!” but alas it is not a joke for those currently suffering through it.

            Every student putting themselves through the torture of taking Calculus and Vectors is doing so because the university they wish to attend demands it. My program, Business Management, asks for this class as well, even though intersecting planes and the area of a triangle inscribed in a cylinder will do me no good in the world of human resources. For this reason, I would love to be given “a break”, as they say. It would be splendid if what I learned was what I was tested on, but nay, every single time I arrive in class to write a test I find myself staring at a twisted version of what I had been studying for weeks under the Knowledge and Understanding section. In fact, what I hear so often from my grade-watching parents is, “You will at least pass, right?” Yes, departments like these are a definite inefficiency in school systems, and I’m sure the thousand-plus league of failing students across the country will vouch for my point.

            There is a definite list in my mind that goes on to prove my argument of inefficient roadblocks, however I will stop here. I do understand that it is a difficult task to oversee the perfection of every nook and cranny in every high school across every board. That’s why, for the purpose of keeping this article civilized, I have narrowed my tear-inducing complaints down to a list of two. These issues, the lack of preparing students and the impossible departments, are the two factors of my school and many others that I think deserve to be looked over and made changes to, for they have made a serious dent in my learning experience. If they were fixed, I’m sure the school boards would be able to shout out their repeated promises of perfection in a more confident tone.

Night Dash

This piece of short fiction represents a special kind of "stepping stone" in life. It represents the "before"--the one that once you lose, you are likely to never get back. Sometimes, although we strive to keep moving forward, reaching the "after" takes a lot away from us. This short story shows just how special the "before" perspective of life can be.

THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD

            My footsteps? Hers? Theirs? It was impossible to tell. Twisted shrubbery and veiny branches curled at me as if I was emitting a magnetic pull. Everything tore at my skin; the rocks leapt to leave bloody dents below my knees as I rushed, bent forward. One hand reaching out, so as not to come to a final stop upon hitting a brick-hard trunk, and one hand back, so as not to lose the light angel that held on gingerly to my fingers.

            I dared not look back, but surely she was there. Floating, almost, with white fabric flying behind her like wings. Golden hair weaving through rushed wind like velvet. In this way, beautiful all over. And my responsibility in the nightmare of these woods.

            A good thing about these cuts and bruises was that I no longer felt the pain in my muscles from running too long. I didn’t see it yet, but when the green light appeared, we would be first. As I thought this, my fingertips before me were scratched by thorny bushes. I swiftly dug my feet into the ground and came to a progressive stop after the long run. As my right arm formed a fleshy barrier between myself and the spiked bush, I flung my left one over Angel and pulled her tightly to my hip. We both fell to our knees immediately, breathing desperately through our nostrils while the blood came to a swishy stop in our heads. My vision was spinning slightly, and I fought to focus on the scene before me as Angel turned her head and took deep breaths while clutching my shirt to her lips. “Good girl,” I whispered hoarsely.

My eyes darted now, fully focused. We were definitely not in any sort of clearing. In fact, it seemed that we had run off track a bit too deeply in my strategy to keep hidden. I suddenly had to stifle a cough and brought my arm up to my mouth. There was Angel, staring at me with wide green eyes. “…Are we found yet?” she whispered. When I still couldn’t find my voice to reply, she grabbed my shirt in a panic with her tiny fists. “Gamma? Are you okay?”

“We’re fine,” I coughed out. “Just…aheh! Off track. But that’s fine. We’re leading.”

Angel continued to stare at me as if I were a God of some sort. “…Okay.” She was so tiny. Even compared to the other petites, she was smaller. She looked five, not eight, and I, I probably looked more like a teenage boy in my state than I did like a girl. I wiped at my face and came back with a palm covered in soot. If we made it, there would be a horrid sleep waiting for us.

Suddenly, a rustling sound. I leapt to my feet but stayed crouched, all the while pulling Angel behind me. She was surely scared, but didn’t let out a single gasp; an expert, now that we had been through these runs countless times. The baby trees before us were hidden in shadows and I cursed. I had let us stop in a position that could be spotted from a blind point. “If it is a chasseur, you run!” I hissed.

“But Ga—!!!”

“No!” I pushed her with more force. “If it is a chasseur then at least you will get there!”

She didn’t answer me, but I didn’t hear her move either. I narrowed my eyes at the rustling branches and began to plan.

Whoever it was, they were clumsy. I wondered if they were one of the nouvelles, but then it would be rare for them to make it this far. Aha! I suddenly noticed, from the height of the origin of rustling, that this person was huge. Perhaps, though unlikely, someone I hadn’t spotted at the début. I kept my eyes fixed on the enemy and grabbed a stone that was at my feet. I was Gamma for a reason—a reason that was gone now. No longer was I one to wait.

“AAAAAAH!!!!” I charged after pushing Angel back forcefully. She fell flat on her butt and I heard her let out a surprised squeak. I tore through the bushes like a mad person, baring my teeth and hunching my shoulders to look bigger. Twigs scratched at my cheeks and I was lucky that none got my eyes. There were heavy THUDS and once I had beaten my way through the web of trees, I spotted the white tail of a plump deer racing off deeper into the woods.

“Zut!” I spat, and then turned to run back to Angel immediately. She was already emerging from the torn hole I had made in nature, her mouth pulled in a tight line but her skinny frame shaking with her attempted bravery.

“What was it?” she whispered at me in the dark.

“A deer, nothing to worry about,” I replied quickly, hoping to calm her. “If the deer’s here that means we’re probably alone in this part of the woods. Let’s go quickly before any of the others come around.”

Angel nodded and her golden strands flew back and forth brightly against the inky blue hues of the forest. She reached forward and her pale arm was revealed as the white gown sleeve fell back. Not a single scratch on her snowy skin, so I was doing very well tonight. Taking her hand and facing forward, I took a single, deep breath before breaking into a run again.

“Les autres!”

This single cry, cracking through the air like a charged whip, sent me flying. I grabbed Angel’s hand with blood-stopping strength and yanked her forward, directly to my side. As I sprinted I pulled her roughly along with me; she was making complete steps on the ground one time out of every three, but mostly, she was like a doll flopping in the wind. A low tree branch was coming up ahead of us, and I half-ducked, half-crawled in my haste, scraping both knees against sticks and hard mud, all the while pulling Angel along with me. There were definite others behind us now, but there was no way I would let us be stopped here.

And suddenly, the green light. I saw it once as I tripped momentarily on a thick root. It whizzed across my vision, teasingly yet certainly. “There, Angel!” I rasped. We ran together now, as I was losing speed after the long race. The cries of the others rang out, stupidly close to the fence that was looming ahead.

“Gamma, jump!” Angel was crying out now too, in a horrifyingly desperate voice. “Jump!” She slipped out of my hand and leapt across the wooden planks that stood before us. After a moment, she appeared at the top again and reached down to help drag me over. I felt one of the others make a grab at my ankle, but it was a bad grip and I was able to flee. On the other side of the fence, I fell to the wet ground and got mud in my ear. But now, the green light was meters away, and it would be worthy of a tragedy to let things end here.

Hastily, I rose and followed the white flowing robes that dashed ahead of me. Every few seconds the golden color would disappear and be replaced by green eyes and a panicked face, checking to see that I was there behind her. There were shouts trailing us as more climbed the fence, but Angel and I were at the green light, too far to be caught.

I let out a whoop as we ran by the mighty pole that shone the light on us. My feet were sturdy on dry dirt ground, and victory was meters away in the form of triangular shapes. Unfortunately, soon after the green light, there was yellow, all around, emerging from corners unseen.

“Malheur!” The yellow lights cried. “Stop there!”

Angel shrieked as the others caught up to our pace. When we passed bright red fabric, I shoved her in without warning. “It’s yours!” I called out. “Sleep now! Do not budge!” And then, I kept running. The others dispersed around me, disappearing into the purples, the greys, and the browns. I, myself, ran to the end, where the orange one stood. With a long dive I was in, then crawling like mad and rustling around with blind eyes. A yellow light was coming closer; I could see it through the orange fabric. There was a ziiiip! and I flipped over so my back was to the half-open space. Eyes shut tight, the performance began.

A rustling, a trip, wild yellow light. “You!” came the hiss. “I know you were there! Look at me now!”

Stay still. Do not move. Perform ‘till la fin.

Another one now. “She was there! She’s always there! Don’t pretend to sleep, Anna! Look at me now!”

The yellow light was on me; I could feel it like it was burning the hair off my scalp.

“Tomorrow morning you will all get it! You little criminels! If you think you can do this every night we will call your parents so fast, you will not have time to blink! Zut! I know you were there!”

Deep, even breathing. Like the first night, when we actually slept.

The voices were leaving now, angry yet with no concrete proof. “They think they can come to camp and do whatever they want?!” A ziiiip! as my tent was shut tight. “They do not think what will happen to us if the park police find out our girls are running like mad every night! That Anna! She was running! I’m sure she was running too!”

In, and out. Just like that. Just like that, I let a smile creep out. Because then, I was sure. At the meeting tomorrow, Angel and I would be crowned first.

Mental Media

This memoir, "Mental Media" is a recount of my realization that I was not fully living life. By that, I mean that I was not appreciating good times the way I should have been. This piece shows how and why I have changed my views on the way I experience things. I'm glad that I overcame this particular "stepping stone" early on, otherwise I probably would've accumulated a large amount of regrets.

My first memory of doing that ridiculous—yet, knowing my own personality, unavoidable—thing came in the second or third grade. It was a chilly day, back when I would take the school bus home. I still remember the worn-out grey seats, ridged walls, and misplaced windows that lined the entire vehicle. There was a kid sitting beside me who I never bothered to notice, so in my mind he or she is just a faceless, colorless blob. Apart from that, everything was more or less grey, and that’s because it was raining. Streaks of water ran down the glass that I was staring at. The windows wore a coat of fog, and just like all the other kids I drew shapes with my finger. We weren’t even halfway home yet but all the windows were now works of attempted art. I remember all of this well, and that’s because on that ride home in the second or third grade, as I was staring out at the rain with my mouth closed in a tight line, I did something that even I’m not sure the reason for. I fixed my eyes tight on the window, and in my head I thought: Remember this. And I did. Like taking a photograph, my first photograph on command, I remember that scene to this day.

            On my first day of grade eight, back when I never imagined my life going past my public school years, I found myself standing in a wide circle with my new peers. We were playing “the chicken game”, which was basically “the name game”, but instead of a ball, a yellow rubber chicken was being tossed around. The desks had all been shoved messily towards one side of the room; the side with the windows. For some odd reason I was in a fairly good mood—something rare for me on first-day-anything. Suddenly, one of my poorly-coordinated peers called my name and tossed the chicken about two meters to the right of me. It clunked against desk legs and disappeared under the tables. “I’ll get it,” I must have said, and then proceeded to bend down. There it was, on the brown-tiled floor, bright and painted with a panicked face. I began to extend my arm to reach for it. Remember this.

            There are more of these “mind photographs” that I have, and they all followed the same, general pattern. Eventually, I began to take them when I was at happy peaks. It didn’t take long for me to realize that what I was doing was trying to freeze moments in a way, as if I thought that by concentrating hard enough, the moment I was in would never pass. Of course, moments always do pass, and memories are, after all, just images that play out in the mind. It is the feelings that resurface, though never the same as the moment in which they first occurred, that matter. However, soon I also realized that many of these snapshots of happy times that I took were also tinged with a hint of sadness; a hint of loneliness.

            On a hot day in early May of my seventeenth year, I found myself at my good friend’s house, along with my best friend. It was afternoon-evening time, and we had wiped ourselves out after drinking heavily-sugared beverages and running through the neighbourhood like fools with bags of groceries. Our playlist of “Dance Songs!” was still ringing loudly in the background, but it was no longer welcomed. My friend, who had been boiling water for tea, abruptly stepped away from the stove to change the music to something more mellow, and rightfully so. I remember everyone’s shoulders sagging, as if finally relaxing and setting into the new, calmer pace of the evening. I opened the sliding door to the backyard and stepped out into warm spring air, and soon we were all outside. Sipping tea, wearing oversized sweaters and still listening to that calming music...we all had smiles plastered onto our faces. I remember my feet were dangling over the edge of the patio, the cup of Earl Grey tea sat in my palms, warm and smooth, and I was staring at the quickly darkening sky while trying to remember what it was that I had to do. There was this urge in the back of my mind, prodding at my conscience, telling me to…rem…emb…

            It never happened.

            I could describe to you an entire collection of pictures: some dark, most bright; some irreplaceably tinged with joy, and some laminated with a faint hope. I hope this lasts forever. This feels like ‘happy’ to me. This is what I wanted for so long. Now I’ve got it. I could describe all of these snapshots to you, but that evening, the one at the house with my friends, I could recount to you the entire movie that I lived through.

            Memories like that, they are the ones that came from moments were I smiled uncontrollably wide and felt tingles all up and down my skin. They were so good that I never even took a picture. I realize now that it’s because those were the moments that were the most real. I lived through them with no filter, just pure emotion and reaction, and therefore they are the ones I remember best. In my mind, they are not a single build up to a scene, but instead they feel more like a long storyline, with positive emotions spread out along them like butter. Looking back, I have a lot, like waking up as a toddler on some mornings to my cousins’ smiling faces and then spending the day with them. There was the afternoon I got what I dreamed of as an awkward pre-teen: my first kiss. Even better were the hours I sat with my best friend at Second Cup and had some of the deepest conversations…and more, of course, but not as much as I could have. And that’s because in a way I had been stopping myself.

By becoming this “mental photographer”, I had transformed into someone who sought to find great moments in life, as a result of a hidden panic that time would slip by and be worth nothing. Alas, by thinking in this way, I kept myself from living life in that raw way that we are meant to do. It has occurred to me now that amazing things definitely happen, and they are best when they build up and appear before us. If we anxiously await them, however, they become spoiled.

This is all a happy realization, though. What better thing to realize than the fact that I should enjoy life more freely? It will feel wonderful to find myself in a situation, sometime soon, where I am not holding my mental camera in jittery hands, but instead smiling bright and realizing, “Ah, this is one of those fantastic moments”. There are so many more memories to build, and it makes me happy that I am nowhere close to being done with my newfound collection of mental movies.